patrick.net

Yeah, the urban apologists surely suffered a setback here in the US with the Paris suburban riots. Suddenly the “emulate Europe” credo lost appeal.

I heard somebody was murdered in NYC last week too. We better all run off to live on Cote's farm.

"Bergen, Norway is also very picturesque, but as much as I like the cold, I couldn’t handle winters there."

Really? Even with the Gulf stream and all that?

I have never been to Amsterdam when it wasn’t 55 degrees and raining.

Yes, even my Dutch friends complain about the weather there. Switzerland is dark enough in the winter; I cannot imagine Norway in the dark months...I'd go crazy. Another worthy option would be sunny, south Switzerland such as Lugano. More cultural diversity than the rather staid German quarter.

DinOR,

Well how “sticky” is using white-out?

It's certainly cheap and lazy. Maybe she blew her budget on the glossy.

" Yeah, the urban apologists surely suffered a setback here in the US with the Paris suburban riots. Suddenly the “emulate Europe” credo lost appeal."

Huh? I thought that was a warning to stay out of sketchy suburbs and exurbs, especially once the section 8 people start to move in.

I would like to spend a winter in Tromso. I figure I'd either kill myself by April or reach some sort of heightened mental state.

Robert Cote'

Yeah, the urban apologists surely suffered a setback

"Urban Apologists". That's a new one for me.

Do you agree that urban centers ever served a utilitarian function historically?

Or follow La Rosey’s lead and do Gstaad durning the ski season and Rolle the rest of the year?

Oh I bet...those towns on L. Geneva are very nice (pricey too!)
I should really get back there and refresh my memory.
Uh...maybe when I get a new job! :)

My marginally Catholic boyfriend knows less about Catholic saints than atheist me. So I wonder if the American Catholic church even bother to teach about the saints anymore.

SFWoman-
I've heard that about Reykjavik too--a lively music/cultural scene. I wouldn't have guessed, but creds to them for carving out a comfortable existence there. There's an example for all of us. I people can make a half-frozen sub-arctic island a nice place to live, we can do the same with the US.

"I people can make a half-frozen sub-arctic island a nice place to live, we can do the same with the US."

Their winters are actually less harsh than the winters in Buffalo, NY and they heat their homes geothermically, so heating oil prices are not concerns.

http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstraveler/wxclimatology/monthly/graph/USNY0181?from=month_bottomnav_business

http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstraveler/wxclimatology/monthly/graph/ICXX0002?from=month_bottomnav_business

The ARM from HELLoc!

...busting through the floorboards, its fingers tightening around the neck of a sleeping FB'er.

Paris is scary? You are very easily frightened. The suburbs of Paris can be scary at night, but the city is extremely safe.

The restaurants are nice indeed. But the subway can be scary at night.

Amsterdam too–and I’d take the good w/bad.

Amsterdam is too interesting for me. I like places that are boring enough to keep out weird people. :)

The one about the American backpackers in former Soviet block nations? If Peter P rents it not only will he not leave the country, he won’t leave his house!

I heard that Prague is pretty nice though. I will never go backpacking.

Robert Cote'

Thanks for clarifying. I suspected your position would be rational and logical. You thankfully separate yourself from the revisionists who'd have us believe that previous to cities everyone lived in some sort of state of communal agricultural bliss.

"the revisionists who’d have us believe that previous to cities everyone lived in some sort of state of communal agricultural bliss."

What what? So I'm the only one here who believes humanity made a mistake when it climbed down from trees.

I can't belive we haven't had a shout out yet for the one and only St Jude:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Jude

patron saint of lost causes and desperate situations.

I nominate a picture of him should be given to all FBs with a house on the market for longer than 99 days...or more than 200% over the last sale price.

Gosh, the subject turns to religion and irrational faith in unseen forces and all of a sudden the peakenese and global warmists

Not to open another can o'worms here, Robert, but recognition that we may someday run out of oil and/or that global temperatures have slowly, steadily been climbing does not automatically make you a tin-foil hat-wearing Chicken Little conspiracist. The important questions to me are: (a) do we have something to replace oil when the time comes? and (b) is recent global warming mostly due to anthropogenic causes or just part of a long-term natural cycle?

Cheer up, Pazuzu, all is not lost my friend! At least you have "saved" yourself and your own family from financial ruin. This is something in which to rejoice, not lament.

I too have been remarkably unsuccessful in dissuading family & friends from jumping off that option-ARM cliff. Even so, what matters in the end is not so much how many FBs we converted, but that we tried and that our hearts were in the right place.

Thanks to recent events and the changing tone of FB news stories, I've noticed my bearish opinions are more socially acceptable around the office. I'm not as easily dismissed as the social pariah/Cassandra I was considered to be last year. In time, I may even be as popular as the floppers of 2005. :-)

global warmists

Dieses thread ist das IST thread. lol.

Myself, I'm more of a empiricaldataanalystdubiousofpiratetotemperaturecorrelationsist.

Randy,

In your investigation of pirates to global climate change, did you take into account the presence of space pirates? You know, the ones made of out anti-matter and dressed like accountants.

Pazuzu, just be glad you're not his kid and won't have to suffer the subsequent life long trauma of it all.

empiricaldataanalystdubiousofpiratetotemperaturecorrelationsist

Data is not almighty. It often distracts us from the big picture.

More on pirates and global warming:

http://www.venganza.org/

Scroll down to the chart...

Thanks Zephyr. I'm glad my obscure reference didn't go unappreciated.

Data is not almighty. It often distracts us from the big picture.

Facts are not almighty. They often distract us from reality.

Facts are not almighty. They often distract us from reality.

Facts are only data points. How we see them is more important. How we use them is the key.

Not a comment on this particular topic but one in general. I am SO glad I located this site; purely by accident and with the help of Google. I'm relocating after retirement from the PacNW, sold my house last month, and am sitting on a bunch of cash trying to figure out if I should wait a while to see what's going to happen with this real estate market. Before I listed my house, I had a feeling the market was going south so I "cashed in" asap......glad I did!

It's double important to me because my son lives in the Bay area and is dealing with the rental nightmare.

Thanks to Patrick for having the guts/balls to put this place together
Thanks to the contributors; I've learned a bunch in the short time here

Doug H,

You're most welcome! It's nice to know this blog (and others) are continuing to have a positive on people's lives, and hopefully preventing some from making foolish and costly mistakes, based upon fear and/or industry propaganda. I would recommend checking out some of the other sites I linked to in my thread topic (listed as "Bubble Apostles").

HARM Says:

"But what of the multitudes of our f@cked brethren, who to this day wander the earth devoid of reason, basic math skills or the ability to distinguish truth from obvious falsehood?"
_____

Ha, ha! Fricken classic, hysterical!

I say let 'em F@cken eat cake!

repo_man,

Even my mom's Chinese language papers are telling her that RE is no longer a sure bet and that the job market is not so hot. I think the only ones saying "it can't happen here" are willfully ignorant of the fact.